Now, if Hatteraick was really put to death on such evidence, it is worth
while to consider what was its real amount. A hot-tempered swaggering
young gentleman horsewhips a beggar of ill fame for loitering about the
gate of his sister's house. The beggar grumbles, as any man would. The
young man, riding in the night, and probably in liquor, through a dark
shady place, is frightened by, he would not, and probably could not,
tell what, and has a fever fit. His sister employs the wizard to take
off the spell according to his profession; and here is _damnum minatum,
et malum secutum_, and all legal cause for burning a man to ashes! The
vagrant Hatteraick probably knew something of the wild young man which
might soon oblige him to leave the country; and the selfish Lady
Samuelston, learning the probability of his departure, committed a fraud
which ought to have rendered her evidence inadmissible.
Besides these particular disadvantages, to which the parties accused of
this crime in Scotland were necessarily exposed, both in relation to the
judicature by which they were tried and the evidence upon which they
were convicted, their situation was rendered intolerable by the
detestation in which they were held by all ranks. The gentry hated them
because the diseases and death of their relations and children were
often imputed to them; the grossly superstitious vulgar abhorred them
with still more perfect dread and loathing. And amongst those natural
feelings, others of a less pardonable description found means to shelter
themselves. In one case, we are informed by Mackenzie, a poor girl was
to die for witchcraft, of whom the real crime was that she had attracted
too great a share, in the lady's opinion, of the attention of the laird.
Having thus given some reasons why the prosecutions for witchcraft in
Scotland were so numerous and fatal, we return to the general history of
the trials recorded from the reign of James V. to the union of the
kingdoms. Through the reign of Queen Mary these trials for sorcery
became numerous, and the crime was subjected to heavier punishment by
the 73rd Act of her 9th Parliament. But when James VI. approached to
years of discretion, the extreme anxiety which he displayed to penetrate
more deeply into mysteries which others had regarded as a very millstone
of obscurity, drew still larger attention to the subject. The sovereign
had exhausted his talents of investigation on the subject of witchcraft,
and credit was given to all who acted in defence of the opinions of the
reigning prince. This natural tendency to comply with the opinions of
the sovereign was much augmented by the disposition of the Kirk to the
same sentiments. We have already said that these venerable persons
entertained, with good faith, the general erroneous belief respecting
witchcraft--regarding it indeed as a crime which affected their own
order more nearly than others in the state, since, especially called to
the service of heaven, they were peculiarly bound to oppose the
incursions of Satan. The works which remain behind them show, among
better things, an unhesitating belief in what were called by them
"special providences;" and this was equalled, at least, by their
credulity as to the actual interference of evil spirits in the affairs
of this world. They applied these principles of belief to the meanest
causes. A horse falling lame was a snare of the devil to keep the good
clergyman from preaching; the arrival of a skilful farrier was accounted
a special providence to defeat the purpose of Satan. This was,
doubtless, in a general sense true, since nothing can happen without the
foreknowledge and will of Heaven; but we are authorized to believe that
the period of supernatural interference has long passed away, and that
the great Creator is content to execute his purposes by the operation of
those laws which influence the general course of nature. Our ancient
Scottish divines thought otherwise. Surrounded, as they conceived
themselves, by the snares and temptations of hell, and relying on the
aid of Heaven, they entered into war with the kingdom of Satan, as the
crusaders of old invaded the land of Palestine, with the same confidence
in the justice of their cause and similar indifference concerning the
feelings of those whom they accounted the enemies of God and man. We
have already seen that even the conviction that a woman was innocent of
the crime of witchcraft did not induce a worthy clergyman to use any
effort to withdraw her from the stake; and in the same collection[75]
there occur some observable passages of God's providence to a godly
minister in giving him "full clearness" concerning Bessie Grahame,
suspected of witchcraft. The whole detail is a curious illustration of
the spirit of credulity which well-disposed men brought with them to
such investigations, and how easily the gravest doubts were removed
rather than a witch should be left undetected.
[Footnote 75: "Satan's Invisible World," by Mr. George Sinclair. The
author was Professor of Moral Philosophy in the University of Glasgow,
and afterwards minister of Eastwood, in Renfrewshire.]
Bessie Grahame had been committed, it would seem, under suspicions of no
great weight, since the minister, after various conferences, found her
defence so successful, that he actually pitied her hard usage, and
wished for her delivery from prison, especially as he doubted whether a
civil court would send her to an assize, or whether an assize would be
disposed to convict her. While the minister was in this doubt, a fellow
named Begg was employed as a skilful pricker; by whose authority it is
not said, he thrust a great brass pin up to the head in a wart on the
woman's back, which he affirmed to be the devil's mark. A commission was
granted for trial; but still the chief gentlemen in the county refused
to act, and the clergyman's own doubts were far from being removed. This
put the worthy man upon a solemn prayer to God, "that if he would find
out a way for giving the minister full clearness of her guilt, he would
acknowledge it as a singular favour and mercy." This, according to his
idea, was accomplished in the following manner, which he regarded as an
answer to his prayer. One evening the clergyman, with Alexander Simpson,
the kirk-officer, and his own servant, had visited Bessie in her cell,
to urge her to confession, but in vain. As they stood on the stair-head
behind the door, they heard the prisoner, whom they had left alone in
her place of confinement, discoursing with another person, who used a
low and ghostly tone, which the minister instantly recognised as the
Foul Fiend's voice. But for this discovery we should have been of
opinion that Bessie Grahame talked to herself, as melancholy and
despairing wretches are in the habit of doing. But as Alexander Simpson
pretended to understand the sense of what was said within the cell, and
the minister himself was pretty sure he heard two voices at the same
time, he regarded the overhearing this conversation as the answer of the
Deity to his petition, and thenceforth was troubled with no doubts
either as to the reasonableness and propriety of his prayer, or the
guilt of Bessie Grahame, though she died obstinate, and would not
confess; nay, made a most decent and Christian end, acquitting her
judges and jury of her blood, in respect of the strong delusion under
which they laboured.
Although the ministers, whose opinions were but two strongly on this
head in correspondence with the prevailing superstitions of the people,
nourished in the early system of church government a considerable desire
to secure their own immunities and privileges as a national church,
which failed not at last to be brought into contact with the king's
prerogative; yet in the earlier part of his reign, James, when freed
from the influence of such a favourite as the profligate Stuart, Earl of
Arran, was in his personal qualities rather acceptable to the clergy of
his kingdom and period. At his departing from Scotland on his romantic
expedition to bring home a consort from Denmark, he very politically
recommended to the clergy to contribute all that lay in their power to
assist the civil magistrates, and preserve the public peace of the
kingdom. The king after his return acknowledged with many thanks the
care which the clergy had bestowed in this particular. Nor were they
slack in assuming the merit to themselves, for they often reminded him
in their future discords that his kingdom had never been so quiet as
during his voyage to Denmark, when the clergy were in a great measure
intrusted with the charge of the public government.
During the halcyon period of union between kirk and king their hearty
agreement on the subject of witchcraft failed not to heat the fires
against the persons suspected of such iniquity. The clergy considered
that the Roman Catholics, their principal enemies, were equally devoted
to the devil, the mass, and the witches, which in their opinion were
mutually associated together, and natural allies in the great cause of
mischief. On the other hand, the pedantic sovereign having exercised his
learning and ingenuity in the Demonologia, considered the execution of
every witch who was burnt as a necessary conclusion of his own royal
syllogisms. The juries were also afraid of the consequences of acquittal
to themselves, being liable to suffer under an assize of error should
they be thought to have been unjustly merciful; and as the witches tried
were personally as insignificant as the charge itself was odious, there
was no restraint whatever upon those in whose hands their fate lay, and
there seldom wanted some such confession as we have often mentioned, or
such evidence as that collected by the minister who overheard the
dialogue between the witch and her master, to salve their consciences
and reconcile them to bring in a verdict of guilty.
The execution of witches became for these reasons very common in
Scotland, where the king seemed in some measure to have made himself a
party in the cause, and the clergy esteemed themselves such from the
very nature of their profession. But the general spite of Satan and his
adherents was supposed to be especially directed against James, on
account of his match with Anne of Denmark--the union of a Protestant
princess with a Protestant prince, the King of Scotland and heir of
England being, it could not be doubted, an event which struck the whole
kingdom of darkness with alarm. James was self-gratified by the unusual
spirit which he had displayed on his voyage in quest of his bride, and
well disposed to fancy that he had performed it in positive opposition,
not only to the indirect policy of Elizabeth, but to the malevolent
purpose of hell itself. His fleet had been tempest-tost, and he very
naturally believed that the prince of the power of the air had been
personally active on the occasion.
The principal person implicated in these heretical and treasonable
undertakings was one Agnes Simpson, or Samson, called the Wise Wife of
Keith, and described by Archbishop Spottiswood, not as one of the base
or ignorant class of ordinary witches, but a grave matron, composed and
deliberate in her answers, which were all to some purpose. This grave
dame, from the terms of her indictment, seems to have been a kind of
white witch, affecting to cure diseases by words and charms, a dangerous
profession considering the times in which she lived. Neither did she
always keep the right and sheltered side of the law in such delicate
operations. One article of her indictment proves this, and at the same
time establishes that the Wise Woman of Keith knew how to turn her
profession to account; for, being consulted in the illness of Isobel
Hamilton, she gave her opinion that nothing could amend her unless the
devil was raised; and the sick woman's husband, startling at the
proposal, and being indifferent perhaps about the issue, would not
bestow the necessary expenses, whereupon the Wise Wife refused to raise
the devil, and the patient died. This woman was principally engaged in
an extensive conspiracy to destroy the fleet of the queen by raising a
tempest; and to take the king's life by anointing his linen with
poisonous materials, and by constructing figures of clay, to be wasted
and tormented after the usual fashion of necromancy.
Amongst her associates was an unhappy lady of much higher degree. This
was Dame Euphane MacCalzean, the widow of a Senator of the College of
Justice, and a person infinitely above the rank of the obscure witches
with whom she was joined in her crime. Mr. Pitcairn supposes that this
connexion may have arisen from her devotion to the Catholic faith and
her friendship for the Earl of Bothwell.
The third person in this singular league of sorcerers was Doctor John
Fian, otherwise Cunninghame, who was schoolmaster at Tranent, and
enjoyed much hazardous reputation as a warlock. This man was made the
hero of the whole tale of necromancy, in an account of it published at
London, and entitled, "News from Scotland," which has been lately
reprinted by the Roxburghe Club. It is remarkable that the Scottish
witchcrafts were not thought sufficiently horrible by the editor of this
tract, without adding to them the story of a philtre being applied to a
cow's hair instead of that of the young woman for whom it was designed,
and telling how the animal came lowing after the sorcerer to his
schoolroom door, like a second Pasiphaë, the original of which charm
occurs in the story of Apuleius.[76]
[Footnote 76: "Lucii Apuleii Metamorphoses," lib. iii.]
Besides these persons, there was one Barbara Napier, alias Douglas, a
person of some rank; Geillis Duncan, a very active witch; and about
thirty other poor creatures of the lowest condition--among the rest, and
doorkeeper to the conclave, a silly old ploughman, called as his
nickname Graymeal, who was cuffed by the devil for saying simply, "God
bless the king!"
When the monarch of Scotland sprung this strong covey of his favourite
game, they afforded the Privy Council and him sport for the greatest
part of the remaining winter. He attended on the examinations himself,
and by one means or or other, they were indifferently well dressed to
his palate.
Agnes Sampson, the grave matron before mentioned, after being an hour
tortured by the twisting of a cord around her head, according to the
custom of the Buccaneers, confessed that she had consulted with one
Richard Grahame concerning the probable length of the king's life, and
the means of shortening it. But Satan, to whom they at length resorted
for advice, told them in French respecting King James, _Il est un homme
de Dieu_. The poor woman also acknowledged that she had held a meeting
with those of her sisterhood, who had charmed a cat by certain spells,
having four joints of men knit to its feet, which they threw into the
sea to excite a tempest. Another frolic they had when, like the weird
sisters in Macbeth, they embarked in sieves with much mirth and jollity,
the Fiend rolling himself before them upon the waves, dimly seen, and
resembling a huge haystack in size and appearance. They went on board of
a foreign ship richly laded with wines, where, invisible to the crew,
they feasted till the sport grew tiresome, and then Satan sunk the
vessel and all on board.
Fian, or Cunninghame, was also visited by the sharpest tortures,
ordinary and extraordinary. The nails were torn from his fingers with
smith's pincers; pins were driven into the places which the nails
usually defended; his knees were crushed in _the boots_, his finger
bones were splintered in the pilniewinks. At length his constancy,
hitherto sustained, as the bystanders supposed, by the help of the
devil, was fairly overcome, and he gave an account of a great
witch-meeting at North Berwick, where they paced round the church
_withershinns_, that is, in reverse of the motion of the sun. Fian then
blew into the lock of the church-door, whereupon the bolts gave way, the
unhallowed crew entered, and their master the devil appeared to his
servants in the shape of a black man occupying the pulpit. He was
saluted with an "Hail, Master!" but the company were dissatisfied with
his not having brought a picture of the king, repeatedly promised, which
was to place his majesty at the mercy of this infernal crew. The devil
was particularly upbraided on this subject by divers respectable-looking
females--no question, Euphane MacCalzean, Barbara Napier, Agnes Sampson,
and some other amateur witch above those of the ordinary profession. The
devil on this memorable occasion forgot himself, and called Fian by his
own name, instead of the demoniacal _sobriquet_ of Rob the Rowar, which
had been assigned to him as Master of the Rows or Rolls. This was
considered as bad taste, and the rule is still observed at every
rendezvous of forgers, smugglers, or the like, where it is accounted
very indifferent manners to name an individual by his own name, in case
of affording ground of evidence which may upon a day of trial be brought
against him. Satan, something disconcerted, concluded the evening with a
divertisement and a dance after his own manner. The former consisted in
disinterring a new-buried corpse, and dividing it in fragments among the
company, and the ball was maintained by well-nigh two hundred persons,
who danced a ring dance, singing this chant--
"Cummer, gang ye before; Cummer gang ye.
Gif ye will not gang before, Cummers, let me."
After this choral exhibition, the music seems to have been rather
imperfect, the number of dancers considered. Geillis Duncan was the only
instrumental performer, and she played on a Jew's harp, called in
Scotland a _trump_. Dr. Fian, muffled, led the ring, and was highly
honoured, generally acting as clerk or recorder, as above mentioned.
King James was deeply interested in those mysterious meetings, and took
great delight to be present at the examinations of the accused. He sent
for Geillis Duncan, and caused her to play before him the same tune to
which Satan and his companions led the brawl in North Berwick
churchyard.[77] His ears were gratified in another way, for at this
meeting it was said the witches demanded of the devil why he did bear
such enmity against the king? who returned the flattering answer that
the king was the greatest enemy whom he had in the world.
[Footnote 77: The music of this witch tune is unhappily lost. But that
of another, believed to have been popular on such occasions, is
preserved.
"The silly bit chicken, gar cast her a pickle,
And she will grow mickle,
And she will do good."]
Almost all these poor wretches were executed, nor did Euphane
MacCalzean's station in life save her from the common doom, which was
strangling to death, and burning to ashes thereafter. The majority of
the jury which tried Barbara Napier having acquitted her of attendance
at the North Berwick meeting, were themselves threatened with a trial
for wilful error upon an assize, and could only escape from severe
censure and punishment by pleading guilty, and submitting themselves to
the king's pleasure. This rigorous and iniquitous conduct shows a
sufficient reason why there should be so few acquittals from a charge of
witchcraft where the juries were so much at the mercy of the crown.
It would be disgusting to follow the numerous cases in which the same
uniform credulity, the same extorted confessions, the same prejudiced
and exaggerated evidence, concluded in the same tragedy at the stake and
the pile. The alterations and trenching which lately took place for the
purpose of improving the Castlehill of Edinburgh displayed the ashes of
the numbers who had perished in this manner, of whom a large proportion
must have been executed between 1590, when the great discovery was made
concerning Euphane MacCalzean and the Wise Wife of Keith and their
accomplices, and the union of the crowns.
Nor did King James's removal to England soften this horrible
persecution. In Sir Thomas Hamilton's Minutes of Proceedings in the
Privy Council, there occurs a singular entry, evincing plainly that the
Earl of Mar, and others of James's Council, were becoming fully sensible
of the desperate iniquity and inhumanity of these proceedings. I have
modernized the spelling that this appalling record may be legible to all
my readers.
"1608, December 1. The Earl of Mar declared to the Council that some
women were taken in Broughton as witches, and being put to an assize and
convicted, albeit they persevered constant in their denial to the end,
yet they were burned quick [_alive_] after such a cruel manner that some
of them died in despair, renouncing and blaspheming [God]; and others,
half burned, brak out of the fire,[78] and were cast quick in it again,
till they were burned to the death."
[Footnote 78: I am obliged to the kindness of Mr. Pitcairn for this
singular extract. The southern reader must be informed that the
jurisdiction or regality of Broughton embraced Holyrood, Canongate,
Leith, and other suburban parts of Edinburgh, and bore the same relation
to that city as the borough of Southwark to London.]
This singular document shows that even in the reign of James, so soon as
his own august person was removed from Edinburgh, his dutiful Privy
Council began to think that they had supt full with horrors, and were
satiated with the excess of cruelty which dashed half-consumed wretches
back into the flames from which they were striving to escape.
But the picture, however much it may have been disgusting and terrifying
to the Council at the time, and though the intention of the entry upon
the records was obviously for the purpose of preventing such horrid
cruelties in future, had no lasting effect on the course of justice, as
the severities against witches were most unhappily still considered
necessary. Through the whole of the sixteenth, and the greater part of
the seventeenth century, little abatement in the persecution of this
metaphysical crime of witchcraft can be traced in the kingdom. Even
while the Independents held the reins of government, Cromwell himself,
and his major-generals and substitutes, were obliged to please the
common people of Scotland by abandoning the victims accused of
witchcraft to the power of the law, though the journals of the time
express the horror and disgust with which the English sectarians beheld
a practice so inconsistent with their own humane principle of universal
toleration.
Instead of plunging into a history of these events which, generally
speaking, are in detail as monotonous as they are melancholy, it may
amuse the reader to confine the narrative to a single trial, having in
the course of it some peculiar and romantic events. It is the tale of a
sailor's wife, more tragic in its event than that of the
chestnut-muncher in Macbeth.[79]
[Footnote 79: A copy of the record of the trial, which took place in
Ayrshire, was sent to me by a friend who withheld his name, so that I
can only thank him in this general acknowledgment.]